Charles Workman was born in Arkansas and is a graduate of the Juilliard School.  He is a versatile artist whose early career saw him in the forefront of Rossini and Mozart tenors and who has more recently garnered praise for his performances in dramatic and Heldentenor roles while continuing to be highly-regarded in early music, French repertory, and 20th-century and contemporary opera.  Following early debuts at the Metropolitan Opera and other American opera houses, Workman moved to Europe in 1995 where he has performed to great success with the leading opera companies and orchestras, including the Paris Opera, London Royal Opera, Milan La Scala, Vienna Staatsoper, Moscow Bolshoi, Madrid Teatro Real, Barcelona Liceu, Berlin Staatsoper, Venice La Fenice, and the companies of Geneva, Zurich, Lyon, Brussels, Munich, Hamburg, Prague and Warsaw.

In 1999 he made a critically acclaimed debut with the Salzburg Festival as Abaris in Rameau’s Les Boréades under Sir Simon Rattle, and also debuted with the Berlin Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado, in Berlin and at the Salzburg Easter Festival, with Bach’s B Minor Mass.  Recent highlights include performances as Tammu in Widmann’s Babylon (Berlin Staatsoper), Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles (Opera Vlaanderen), Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna Staatsoper and Munich Bayerische Staatsoper), Paul in Die Tote Stadt (Hamburg Staatsoper), Skuratov in Janáček’s From the House of the Dead (Munich Bayerische Staatsoper), Alwa in Lulu (Vienna Staatsoper, Rome Teatro dell’Opera), the world premiere of Sciarrino’s Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo (Milan Teatro alla Scala & Berlin Staatsoper), Edmund in Reimann’s Lear (Salzburg Festival), Nobile in the world and UK premieres of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel (Salzburg Festival and Royal Opera Covent Garden), Der Tambourmajor in Wozzeck (Geneva Grand Théâtre), Albert Gregor in The Makropulos Case (San Francisco Opera), the title role of La Damnation de Faust and Alviano in Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten (both for Opéra de Lyon), Laca Klemeň in Jenůfa (Brussels La Monnaie), the title role of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (Paris Opera), Bayan/Finn in Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila for the grand reopening of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Bassanio in the world premiere of Andre Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice (Polish National Opera and Bregenz Festival), Erik in Der Fliegende Holländer (Bologna Teatro Comunale and Polish National Opera), the title roles of Pfitzner’s Palestrina (Munich Bayerische Staatsoper), La clemenza di Tito (Brussels La Monnaie and Polish National Opera), and Idomeneo (Paris Opera and Prague National Theater), Tempo in Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Berlin Staatsoper and Stuttgart Staatsoper), Jupiter opposite Cecilia Bartoli’s Semele (Salzburg Pfingstfestspiele, Paris Salle Pleyel, Vienna Theater an der Wien, and Opernhaus Zurich), Silvio in Martin y Soler’s L’Arbore di Diana (Barcelona Liceu), Don Ottavio (Santa Fe Opera), Acis in Acis and Galatea (Royal Opera Covent Garden), Polo in Tan Dun’s Marco Polo (Netherlands Opera), and Flamand in Capriccio, Albert Gregor in The Makropulos Case, and the Prince in L’Amour des trois oranges (all for Paris Opera). Also notable were his performances of the title role in Idomeneo at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome and as Alwa in Lulu at the Staatsoper Hamburg.

Productions of the 2020/2021 and 2021/22 seasons included Hoffegut in Braunfels’ Die Vögel (Bavarian State Opera), Francesca da Rimini (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and the title role in La Clemenza di Tito at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival and in a concert performance at the Lucerne Festival, the title role in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria in Florence, a concert performance of Berg’s Lulu (Alwa) at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest and Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Most recently he appeared in the title role in Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, in Francesca da Rimini (Malatestino dall’Occhio) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as Polonius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet opera and as Walter in Weinberg’s The Passenger at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, as Yannakos in Bohuslav Martinů‘s Greek Passion at the Salzburg Festival, as Aegisth in Elektra at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London and as Laca in Janacek’s Jenufa at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. Highlights of the current 2024/25 season include the role of Nagg in a new production of Kurtag’s Fin de Partie at the Vienna State Opera, the revival of Weinberg’s The Passenger at the Bavarian State Opera, his role debut as Herod in Strauss’ Elektra at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and once again Herod at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

His recordings include Gluck’s Armide, Mozart’s Il sogno di Scipione, Bizet’s La jolie fille de Perth, and Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon, as well as DVDs of Ruslan and Lyudmila (Moscow Bolshoi), Lulu (Brussels La Monnaie), Semele (Opernhaus Zurich), L’Amour des trois Oranges and Cardillac (Paris Opera), L’Arbore di Diana (Barcelona Liceu), Acis and Galatea (Royal Opera Covent Garden), Marco Polo (Netherlands Opera), Arabella (Metropolitan Opera), The Merchant of Venice (Bregenz Festival), and Rossini’s La Gazzetta (Barcelona Liceu) and Tancredi (Trieste Teatro Verdi).